AccessMyLibrary provides FREE access to over 30 million articles from top publications available through your library.
Create a link to this page
Copy and paste this link tag into your Web page or blog:
Wood stones, wax, and bones--that's what people wrote on.
Right now, you're reading an article in AppleSeeds magazine, printed on paper. Paper is cheap and easy to get, so it's hard to imagine life without it. But how did people record their ideas before paper was invented?
The answer is, lots of different ways. At first, they painted and carved on stone surfaces. Stone lasts a long time, but imagine a stone copy of AppleSeeds!
Some ancient people scratched and painted on palm leaves. They're light and easy to write on, but they fell apart quickly. So writers turned to other plant parts. Many used wood. It grows almost everywhere and is easy to cut, easy to write on with ink or paint, and easy to carve. Where bamboo was available, writers scratched letters onto that. Many people used the bark of trees, too.
What other materials were used? The ancient Mesopotamians used easy-to-find clay. Writers wrote on clay while it was soft, then let it dry. Sometimes they baked the clay to make it even harder. All over the world, people also used broken pottery pieces, called ostraca, as notepads.
The ancient Greeks and Romans ...
- Monkey brains, cobra soup and stewed puppies ..PX: Snake soup: Still as popular...
- News wire article from: Asia Africa Intelligence Wire September 28, 2003 700+ words
...New Straits Times (Malaysia)) IN early 1952, Arthur Helliwell, a British journalist, writing for a Sunday paper, The People, wrote an article entitled "Snob City" based on his short visit to the Federation of Malaya and Singapore. Among other things...
- It's not that easy trying to roast Chiefs' Peterson.
- News wire article from: Kansas City Star March 10, 2005 700+ words
...Could you imagine anything easier? In Kansas City, especially...scream about. This would be easier than the first question on...thing, though: It wasn't easy. Roasts, especially for charity...and I found that most of what people wrote about Peterson were actually...
- Daily Press, Newport News, Va., Tamara Dietrich column: No easy answer to stop...
- Newspaper article from: Daily Press (Newport News, VA) July 6, 2007 700+ words
...And July is just beginning. "This is getting ridiculous people," wrote "Onegoodcop" on Thursday's online forum at Dailypress...t know how to answer that," Frank says. "It would be easy to say we're doing all we can do and all we could do. I...
- It ain't easy to reach out and touch someone when you don't have a phone, and...
- Magazine article from: Countryside & Small Stock Journal Lefsaker, Alanna July 1, 1993 700+ words
I think it would be interesting if some people wrote in about communications in the countryside. We used to live in the Snake River breaks and we had no phone or electricity. During...
- Think ink! It's easy to take making your mark for granted, but it took...
- Newspaper article from: The Christian Science Monitor September 21, 2004 700+ words
...think about this: How would you like to carry a backpack full of stone books to school every day? Before ink was invented, people wrote pretty "heavy" messages to each other. They carved pictures and letters into stone or pressed them into wet clay. The...
- The "four-wheeler" plan will make life easier. (Country conversation &...
- Magazine article from: Countryside & Small Stock Journal Perna, Shannon July 1, 2003 700+ words
...responded to know how much my brother, family, and I appreciate all the wonderful suggestions we received. Thirty-nine people wrote with suggestions and well-wishes! We chose the "four-wheeler gate" sent to us by Allen Herrick of South Dakota. It...
- Introducing Libraries in Computers.(Column)
- Magazine article from: Computers in Libraries Chudnov, Daniel January 1, 2007 700+ words
...for jake. Immediately, people wrote back to us about how useful...own institutions. Many people wrote in with ideas of how to...and we helped to make it easier for our peers to do the same. This made it easier to add or improve library...
- Writer on the storm: former new left leader Carl Oglesby on the '60s, his old...
- Magazine article from: Reason Kauffman, Bill April 1, 2008 700+ words
...the space of a year? Carl Oglesby: Easy. The steps were simple, logical, nothing...a stir, the poster did go up, a few people wrote to SDS for the "facts," and SDS didn...the document that got sent around when people wrote to SDS responding to that poster. reason...
- Nonprofits awaken to the power of the Internet.
- Magazine article from: Long Island Business News March 28, 2008 700+ words
...quilt with panels on which people wrote messages such as "My dad was...memorializing. It's just so much easier." Lally said the idea sprang...bereavement. An online quilt will be easier to access and you'll be able...said online donations are easier to process than conventional...
- Oakey: The buzz is back.
- News wire article from: Europe Intelligence Wire June 26, 2009 700+ words
...the questions people have had of me.'People wrote me off, but I've bounced back.'It's not been easy but I feel I've shown heart. I've...He said: 'To be honest, there were easier fights out there for me than Shon Davies...
Source: HighBeam Research, Wood stones, wax, and bones--that's what people wrote on.